World Championship title defended: Roman Repilov wins ahead of Felix Loch

Winners WCh 2021

Koenigssee (FIL): Roman Repilov has defended his title at the FIL World Championships. On the track at Koenigssee he was 62 thousandths of a second ahead of local hero Felix Loch. After the first run, the order of the top two was still the other way, Loch was leading by 0.002 seconds. "The second place in the first run was good for me, that gave me extra motivation," said winner Repilov, "my coaches say: I am like a shark. That's my style. I needed the second place. If you look at races in the past, it always worked out."

Felix Loch was not at all disappointed. The big favourite, who has won all eight individual races in the World Cup, had made small driving mistakes in both runs on his home track. "I know Roman is really fast at Königssee," said Loch, "he has already shown that at the World Cup." At the race in early January, the 24-year-old athlete of the Russian Luge Federation had finished second behind the German. Discussing the duel with the old and new World champion, "When you fight nose to nose for a few thousandths, that's really fun."

Roman Repilov WCh 21

Third, 0.217 seconds behind, was David Gleirscher. "I am incredibly happy about the second World Championship medal. And that in two days," said the Austrian. Max Langenhan followed closely behind. "I can't be disappointed," said the 21-year-old from Thuringia, "to be beaten by the Olympic champion by two hundredths in the end, I can live with that." Especially since he consequently secured the title of U23 World Champion. Second in this classification was his teammate Moritz Bollmann (20) ahead of Latvian Gints Berzins (18).

To the World Championship results in detail: https://www.fil-luge.org/en/multimedia/fil-world-championships-7